FitzRoy knelt in the vegetable garden, which had obviously been left entirely to its own devices since the previous year’s trampling-down. There, nestling amid the disordered wet grass, lay a clutch of entirely healthy turnips and potatoes, which had pushed their way optimistically to the surface.
‘You see?’ he said, staring bleakly up at Sulivan and Bennet, the rain streaming off his face. ‘It could have worked. It would have worked.’
Grief and defiance were mingled on his face. Bennet did not dare reply.
‘You did everything you could. There was nothing more you could have done,’ Sulivan reassured him.
‘That’s utter rubbish and you know it,’ replied FitzRoy savagely. He looked back at the pathetically hopeful row of vegetables. ‘Have these dug up and fed to the men. We might as well try to salvage something from this whole sorry mess.’
In the gloom of the afternoon, when the rain had washed away the mists, only to replace them with a wake of haggard, sorrowful clouds, FitzRoy sat alone in his cabin, running the events of the previous four years back and forth in his mind. What could he have done differently? What sbould he have done differently? Was there any point in crucifying himself? He looked across at the seat where Edward Hellyer had once sat, gazing up at him in awe and admiration. Yes, there was every point in doing so.
An urgent knock at the door interrupted his reverie. It was Bennet.
‘Sir - a canoe. I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but - there’s a canoe.’
‘Thank you, Mr Bennet. I shall be up presently.’
He tried not to let his heart thump. It was probably nothing - probably just a passing native family. Compose yourself. You are in command, remember. It is time that you justified the Admiralty’s faith in you, and that of your officers and men. He smoothed down his uniform and stepped on to the deck.
To the naked eye, the canoe was just a dark, approaching blot far out in the sound, distinguishable from the surrounding islets only by its gently rocking motion. He took the spyglass proffered by Sulivan. It was an unusual vessel, smaller than the average native canoe, remarkable both for the ragged flag flying from its prow, and for the absence of any sacred fire amidships. There were only two souls aboard. The first was a slender young woman paddling the craft, who - FitzRoy thought - conformed more to the Western ideal of beauty than to the burly, well-fed look that appealed to most Fuegian men. The other occupant was a man, naked and wretchedly thin, with long, disordered hair. FitzRoy felt that he did not recognize either individual, but it was hard to be sure, for as he raised the spyglass to his eye the man hurriedly concealed his face behind his hand in shame. For a moment he thought these two gestures unconnected, but then he remembered the Fuegians’ extraordinary powers of eyesight. Even with the naked eye, the man could probably see the ship better than he could discern anything in the canoe through the blurry-edged lens of the ‘bring ‘em-near’, as Jemmy had liked to refer to his spyglass. As FitzRoy continued to squint into the eyepiece, the Fuegian turned his back, apparently to avoid being recognized, and dipped his free hand over the side, before bringing it up to his face. He’s washing himself, realized FitzRoy. He’s cleaning his face. Finally, having completed his ablutions, the passenger brought his gaunt face slowly into view. He lifted one hand to his forehead, looked directly at FitzRoy, and touched the peak of an imaginary cap in naval salute. It was Jemmy Button.
Or, rather, it was Jemmy Button’s shadow: a pale wisp of the sleek, well-fed, well-groomed boy they had left behind. As the canoe drew closer, FitzRoy finally had a proper view of the Fuegian’s squalid condition. His hair was unkempt, greasy and matted, his eyes red-rimmed from the effects of woodsmoke, his modesty covered by a wretched scrap of Walthamstow blanket slung about his hips. His skin was stretched taut across the concentric rungs of his ribs. So complete and grievous was the change that FitzRoy feared he might weep.
‘My dear FitzRoy, you are crying,’ said Darwin, who had materialized at his side, and he realized that in fact he had already let his emotions show. The philosopher put a consoling hand on his shoulder.
‘Forgive me, Darwin ... it seems I am disposed to play the woman’s part today.’
‘My dear man,’ murmured his friend, ‘poor Jemmy’s appearance would be enough to move hardier souls than sailors.’
FitzRoy pulled himself together with an effort, and called for his steward. ‘Fuller.’
‘Sir.’
‘Would you set the table for six, please? Mr Button is returned to the ship, and I should like to invite him and his companion to take supper with me. Would you also extend the invitation to Mr Bennet, Mr Bynoe, and to Mr Darwin, of course.’
‘Aye aye sir.’
Jemmy’s canoe was made fast alongside, and a peculiar little pantomime was enacted between the two Fuegians. Jemmy politely motioned for his companion to go ahead and scale the battens, saying to her in English, with a little bow, ‘After you, Mrs Button.’
A scared look passed fleetingly across the woman’s face as she responded, ‘No, after you, Mr Button.’
‘Please, Mrs Button, after you. Ladies first is proper.’
‘Please, after you, Mr Button.’ And then, after a frightened pause, ‘Mrs Button no want go on ship.’
Jemmy put his arms tenderly about his wife and stroked her hair. ‘Jemmy not be long. You wait here, Mrs Button.’ Clutching a bundle wrapped with the remaining portion of blanket in the crook of one arm, he clambered aboard more nimbly than any of the crew had ever seen him move before.
‘Jemmy, thank God you’re alive.’
‘Capp‘en Fitz’oy. I knew you will come back. I say to Mrs Button, Capp‘en Fitz’oy will not forget Jemmy, he will come back. She no believe you will come, Capp‘en Fitz’oy, but I say to her, Capp‘en Fitz’oy is English gen‘leman, his word is his bond. He will come back for Jemmy Button.’
‘You are married, Jemmy. My hearty congratulations.’
‘Congratulations, Jemmy old son,’ added a husky-voiced Bennet.
‘Well done, Jemmy,’ from Bynoe. ‘She’s a fine catch.’
‘Thank you, my confidential friend. Jemmy is not proper married, like in church, but Jemmy remember words, say them again, so to be married in sight of God.’
‘Your wife ... she speaks English.’
‘English Jemmy’s language, not Yamana. English good language. Jemmy teach Mrs Button English. Capp‘en Fitz’oy always say Jemmy is English gen‘leman.’
As he uttered these last words, Jemmy’s voice tailed off, and he looked down at his naked, emaciated frame. The others instinctively followed his gaze.
‘Mr Bennet?’ asked FitzRoy. ‘Perhaps you would take Jemmy below and find him a suit of clothes. The best we have to offer.’
‘It would be a pleasure, sir.’
Half an hour later, a fully clothed, scrubbed and shod Jemmy Button sat down to supper with FitzRoy, Darwin, Bennet and Bynoe, while Sulivan took command of the watch on deck. Despite being wooed with presents of handkerchiefs, blankets and a gold-laced cap that one kind crew member had purchased in Rio for his own wife, nothing would induce Mrs Button to leave her station in the bobbing canoe alongside. She sat alone and frightened as darkness fell; hers was an empty place at dinner. Fuller fetched plates of fish and crabmeat, followed by fresh-boiled turnips and potatoes. Jemmy held up his outer knife and fork and grinned at Bennet. ‘With each course, you move in to the next two pieces of cutlery.’ He repeated Bennet’s own words back to him, even the inflections exact after four years.
‘You remembered,’ said Bennet. ‘Sharp as a tack.’
Jemmy grinned again, this time with pride and pleasure at his accomplishment.
‘So, Jemmy.’ FitzRoy broached the obvious subject as gently as he could. ‘If it’s not too ... painful, perhaps you could tell us what became of the mission.’
‘The Oens-men came, Capp‘en Fitz’oy, when the leafs turned red. Always when the leafs turn red there is no food, the Oens-men are hungry. So they
come to my land. Yamana people always leave tents, run away. But Jemmy cannot leave mission. Have to stay with mission. Many Yamana people at mission, bad people, try to steal Jemmy’s tools, Jemmy’s clothes. Look for Jemmy’s things, not look for Oens-men. God sends Oens-men to punish them. Oens-men come from the mountains behind Woollya, surprise Yamana people. Much fighting, many dead.’
‘And York? Fuegia? Did they survive?’
Jemmy’s face clouded with anger.
‘York go to secret place under Mister Matthews’s floor, take big spade. Says he will kill anyone who comes near. Pick up big stones. Oens-men afraid - not come near him. After Oens-men are gone, York says to Jemmy, it is not safe at Woollya. We must take tools, knives, axes, all precious things, go to York’s land with Fuegia. Jemmy says yes, I will go with you. York makes big canoe. Before we leave, York sets fire to mission. Says bad people must not live there. We leave at dawn, travel west towards sunset. Sleep on island where channel goes two different ways. Jemmy wakes in night - hears noise. York is above him. York have moved quietly, like big cat. Jemmy tries to get free, but York have put his knife here, at Jemmy’s throat. Makes Jemmy take off clothes. York takes everything, Capp‘en Fitz’oy, everything. All Jemmy’s clothes. Take shirt, breeches, gloves, nice shiny boots. All tools, everything. Leaves Jemmy to die on island. He say Jemmy foolish, he say white man foolish, he say Capp‘en Fitz’oy foolish, all believe York lies. He say if Mister Matthews stayed he will kill him too. York say he too clever for white men, have clever plan from beginning. I say Capp‘en Fitz’oy not foolish, I say Capp‘en Fitz’oy English gen‘leman. Keep his word. York laugh at Jemmy. Not see him again.’
Ob, but be was right, Jemmy - I have been so very, very foolish. York has outwitted us all. He meditated taking the best opportunity of possessing himself of everything right from the start. That is why he would not be left in his own country - for he would not have known where to look for poor Jemmy to plunder him. Such a betrayal - such a tragic course of events-and all for a box of tools. Everything undone for a box of tools.
‘Then what happened, Jemmy? How did you get away from there?’
‘I swim home, Capp‘en Fitz’oy! York think is too far for Jemmy - many miles - thinks Jemmy will die. York say Jemmy go soft in Wal’amstow. But Jemmy good swimmer, like seal. Jemmy not soft. Jemmy swim all way back here. So York is big fool, not Jemmy.’
‘And how are you now, Jemmy? Are you well, in yourself?’
‘I am hearty, sir, never better. Jemmy eat plenty fruits, plenty birdies, ten guanaco in snow time. And too much fish,’ he avowed, patting his stomach exaggeratedly. All present knew that he was lying.
‘I am glad to hear it, Jemmy,’ said FitzRoy limply, unable to think of any other response.
Jemmy put down his fork. ‘Jemmy bring presents. Look.’ He dragged his bundle from under the table and unwrapped the blanket. ‘No money. No shops. Jemmy cannot buy presents. So he make them himself.’
With a flourish, he produced a handmade bow and arrows, and a quiver painstakingly sewn from guanaco-leather.
‘For my old friend Schoolmaster Jenkins, of St Mary’s Infants’ School. Please to give to him.’
‘I’ll make sure he gets it, Jemmy, I promise,’ said FitzRoy.
‘These are for you, Mr Philosopher.’ He handed to Darwin two immaculately carved spear-heads.
‘Why, thank you, Jemmy. That‘s ... that’s most extraordinarily generous of you.’
‘And for you too, my confidential friend.’ There were two further spear-heads for Bynoe.
‘Jemmy, I - I’m speechless.’
‘For you, my great friend Mr Bennet, and for you, Capp‘en Fitz’oy, I give you this.’ Reverentially, he unrolled two otterskins, carefully cleaned and preserved. ‘Better than guanaco-skin. Better than sealskin. Very difficult to find. I catch them myself for my friends. My friends from Englan’, who will never let me down as long as I shall live.’ Jemmy’s voice cracked as he reached the end of his speech.
‘Thanks, Jemmy,’ said Bennet, his voice so hoarse with emotion it could hardly be heard in the little cabin. A big fat tear rolled off the end of Jemmy’s nose and fell with a splat on to the linen tablecloth.
‘Jemmy, I...’ FitzRoy tailed off in desperation. A low ululation of distress could be heard floating up from the canoe outside.
‘Mister Button! Mister Button!’ came Mrs Button’s plaintive call.
‘Jemmy,’ said FitzRoy, taking the Fuegian’s hands urgently in his own, ‘do you want to come home with us? Home to England in the Beagle?’
‘Mister Button! Mister Button!’ came another moan from outside.
‘Capp’en Fitz’oy, I ...’
Jemmy’s eyes were wet with misery. ‘Jemmy must stay here with Mrs Button. She not want to come on the Beagle. Much scared of white people. Mrs Button is with child.’
‘Congratulations, Jemmy ... I - I didn’t realize.’
‘Jemmy’s home is here. I am English gen’leman, Capp‘en Fitz’oy, but Jemmy’s home is here. Do you understand?’
‘I understand. I understand, Jemmy, my dear, dear friend.’ He clasped the Fuegian’s hands so tightly that his knuckles blanched.
‘But Capp’en Fitz’oy will come back? Will come back in the Beagle again to see Jemmy Button?’
‘I ... I’ll do my best, Jemmy. It depends where the Admiralty sends me. But I promise I will do my level best to visit you in the future.’
‘Thank you, my friend. I say to Mrs Button, Capp’en Fitz’oy will not forget Jemmy Button. He will come back. Capp’en Fitz’oy is English gen’leman.’
‘Mister Button! Mister Button!’ The call from outside was shot through with distress. FitzRoy relaxed his grip.
‘You had better go, Jemmy. I should like to keep you with us, I should like that so very much, but I fear that you must leave.’
‘Goodbye, my dearest friends. Jemmy will always remember you.’
‘And we will remember you, Jemmy, I give you my word.’
‘As an English gen’leman, Capp‘en Fitz’oy.’
‘As an English gentleman, Jemmy.’
The Beagle slipped her moorings at first light, and drifted serenely away from the shore on the morning tide. As she stood out of Ponsonby Sound, Jemmy and his wife crept wearily out from the clump of rushes where they had hidden for the night, their bodies curled protectively around a full blanket-load of presents. The Fuegian lit a signal fire to herald the ship’s departure. FitzRoy and Darwin stood on the poop and watched the insubstantial column of smoke make its connection between the lonely meadows of Woollya and the passing clouds above. A gust of wind caught it and bent it like a reed, but it refused to break.
‘Perhaps ... perhaps some shipwrecked seaman will one day hereafter receive help and kind treatment from Jemmy Button’s children. Perhaps they will be prompted by the traditions they will have heard, of men from other lands. Perhaps they will have an idea, however faint, of their duty to God as well as to their neighbour.’
Or perhaps, more likely, it has all been in vain. Literally, a vain scheme, conceived on too small a scale, with disastrous consequences for those poor souls involved against their will.
‘My dear FitzRoy, I do not doubt for one second that he will be just as happy as if he had never left his country.’
‘Do you really believe so?’
‘I do.’
You are wrong, my friend, for I have given him a taste of a better life, then snatched it away. I have taken away his innocence, something I had no right to do. I wanted to bring him closer to God, but at the end it was I who played God, with the lives of other men.
The tiny figure by the signal fire was waving now, his hand describing wide, metronomic arcs as if he were copying the gesture from a handbook. Discreetly, Darwin left FitzRoy to his private agonies and wandered along the deck. He found Bennet grasping the rail with a hopeless ferocity, peering into the dawn light as if terrified of the moment when he might no longer be abl
e to distinguish Jemmy from his surroundings.
‘What really hurts, Philos,’ said the coxswain, without averting his gaze even for a second, ‘is that I know I’ll never see him again.’
‘I do not think any of us ever will.’
‘It could all have been so different. If only we’d ... if we’d ... I don’t know.’
‘May I ask you a question, Mr Bennet?’
‘By all means.’
‘Do you believe in God?’
‘Do I believe in God? Of course I believe in God, Philos. That is ... on days like today ... sometimes it’s hard, Philos, sometimes it’s hard. But do I believe in God? Yes. Yes I do. Leastways, I’m sure I do.’
Part Four
Chapter Twenty
Valparayso, Chili, 2 November 1834
‘Raise tacks, sheets an’ mains’l haul
We’re bound for Vallaparayser round the Horn!
Me boots an’ clothes are all in pawn
An’ it’s bleedin’ draughty round the Horn!’
So sang the crew, with a surge of relief, as the Beagle and the Adventure finally drew a line under the year’s surveying and headed for the sanctuary of Chili’s warm, fruit-laden valleys - except that, of course, there was no longer any need to proceed via the Horn.
They had repaired the damage to the Beagle’s keel by running her up to the Rio Santa Cruz in Patagonia and beaching her in the estuary, where a forty-foot tide swept in and out. Laid up on the sands amid a crowd of disgruntled sealions, the little ship had assumed the proportions of a leviathan, her fat, glistening, slimy belly towering above the crew, as if she might subside and suffocate them were she to breathe out. While Carpenter May and his team set to work, FitzRoy had mounted an expedition upriver to try to reach the Andes from the east. Amid swarms of persistent horseflies, they had man-hauled the whaleboats against the icy current for three back-breaking weeks, using track ropes fastened to lanyards made from broad canvas strips. For two hundred and fifty miles they had pulled, up a lonely, twisting glen lined by black basalt cliffs. The countryside around, if one could call it that, was a featureless plain of volcanic lava, punishingly hot by day and freezing by night, its ebony sheen flat to the horizon. But the river had cut deep into the lava: the ravine up which they slogged was three hundred feet in depth and more than a mile across. Beady-eyed condors stood sentry on their basaltic battlements, but otherwise there were precious few living creatures to be seen. There were Indian tracks about their camp in the mornings, though, evidence that they had been thoroughly investigated during the night. Here, well south of the front line against General Rosas, it appeared that the white man constituted a mere curiosity and not an adversary to be feared. There were puma tracks, too, for the Indians were not the only lords desirous to know who had intruded into their land. As with the Indians, the men on watch had seen and heard nothing, not even a rustle in the reeds.